ndations, lurked
always that dreadful apprehension.

As he reached the marble hall on the ground-floor a lady was getting
into the lift. She turned sharply, gave a joyous and yet timid
commencement of a scream, and left the lift to the liftman.

'I'm so glad I've not missed you,' she said, holding out her small
gloved hand, and putting her golden head on one side, and smiling. 'I
was afraid I should. I had to go out. Don't tell me that interview was
too awful. Don't crush me. I know it was pretty bad.'

So her name was Geraldine.

'I thought it was much too good for its subject,' said Henry. He saw in
the tenth of a second that he had been wholly wrong, very unjust, and
somewhat cruel, to set her down as a pushing little thing. She was
nothing of the kind. She was a charming and extremely stylish woman,
exquisitely feminine; and she admired him with a genuine admiration. 'I
was just going to write and thank you,' he added. And he really believed
that he was.

What followed was due to the liftman. The impatient liftman, noticing
that the pair were enjoying each other's company, made a disgraceful
gesture behind their backs, slammed the gate, and ascended majestically
alone in the lift towards some high altitude whence emanated an odour of
boiled Spanish onions. Geraldine Foster glanced round carelessly at the
rising and beautiful flunkey, and it was the sudden curve of her neck
that did it. It was the sudden curve of her neck, possibly assisted by
Henry's appreciation of the fact that they were now unobserved and
solitary in the hall.

Henry was made aware that women are the only really interesting
phenomena in the world. And just as he stumbled on this profound truth,
Geraldine, for her part, caught sight of the pirated editions in his
hand, and murmured: 'So Mr. Snyder has told you! _What a shame_, isn't
it?'

The sympathy in her voice, the gaze of her eyes under the lashes,
finished him.

'Do you live far from here?' he stammered, he knew not why.

'In Chenies Street,' she replied. 'I share a little flat with my friend
upstairs. You must come and have tea with me some afternoon--some
Saturday or Sunday. Will you? Dare I ask?'

He said he should like to, awfully.

'I was dining out last night, and we were talking about you,' she began
a few seconds later.

Women! Wine! Wealth! Joy! Life itself! He was swept off his feet by a
sudden and tremendous impulse.

'I wish,' he blurted out, interrupting her--'